Tests of the Discriminating Irritant Projectile (DIP) – a form of gun that will fire an irritant substance like CS gas or pepper spray – are believed to be in the late stages.

The gun has a far greater range than a Taser, which can be fired from 21 feet.

It was put forward for testing along with ideas to use skunk oil pellets and anti-laser technology by Government scientists as a method for controlling future protesters in the wake of the 2011 riots, which took place across the country.

Deputy Chief Constable Simon Chesterman told police news website http://www.policeoracle.com: “The Discriminating Irritant Projectile can be fired from a baton gun and has a quantity of micronised CS in the nose cone.

“The range of a Taser is 21 feet – if there is an operational requirement to incapacitate somebody at a distance, the DIP can be deployed from up to 131 feet away.”

Looked like a cold and slippery scene in front of Shell yesterday… Click the picture for The Guardian’s video from the action.

Environmental protesters opposed to Shell’s Arctic oil drilling plans stacked a wall of ice blocks in front of an entrance to the company’s London headquarters yesterday. Some 15 activists from the group Climate Justice Collective participated in the action against Shell, saying its drilling efforts off the coast of Alaska are both taking advantage of and contributing to the problem of receding sea ice.

Meanwhile, Democracy Now reported that more naturally occurring sea ice moving into the vicinity of Shell’s Arctic drill rig forced the company to halt its efforts Monday, just one day after it began drilling an exploratory well. Continue reading →

Wow! Its been a wild week, and we’ve gotten a bit behind on the news as several EF! Newswire contributors were tied up in Tampa at the RNC protests. But it looks like that blue moon may have gotten some people pretty riled up! Here’s a compilation of news from the front lines around the world to catch you up a bit…

Tar Sands Blockade Halted Keystone XL Construction

As Hurricane Isaac made landfall in New Orleans on the eve of Hurricane Katrina’s seventh anniversary, climate justice organizers in Texas werelocking themselves to the axle of a massive TransCanada semi-truck, carrying 36-inch pipes intended for Keystone XL construction, in hopes that they might turn the climate crisis around.

With help from TransCanada workers themselves, these six people were able to shut down operations at the Livingston pipe yard and cut off the transportation of pipes to construction sites across the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline after police were forced to dismantle the truck to make arrests.

The action comes in response to a recent court ruling giving TransCanada the green light to steal a piece of Texas landowner Julia Trigg Crawford’s home. Lamar County Judge Bill Harris practically insulted this local farmer by sending a 15-word summary judgment to her from his iPhone in Washington, DC, August 15.

Anti-corporate protests kick-off DNC in North Carolina

The first march of the DNC convergence, Charlotte, NC

About 1000 people pissed at corporate America marched in Charlotte, NC, yesterday, two days before the Democratic National Convention begins.

According to police, two people were arrested, one for having a concealed knife and another for disorderly conduct.

The demonstrators were members of more than 90 local and national groups. Mortgage foreclosures, high-interest student loans and environmental issues were among their foremost concerns.

Occupy camp carries radical eco message from Tampa to Charlotte.

The protesters marched past the headquarters of Duke Energy, the nation’s biggest electric utility. Security was evident, with several hundred police officers also lining the sidewalks near the Bank of America headquarters.

Beth Henry, 58, a former Charlotte corporate lawyer, took aim at Duke Energy’s environmental record: “To leave our children a ruined world, all we need to do is let companies like Duke Energy keep doing what they’re doing.” [Source]

Day 10 of villagers’ dam-sit to stop flooding in India

View of Omkareshwar Dam from Siddhnath Temple.

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received a report from the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) that a large group of villagers who have been evicted from their land without compensation for the construction of the Omkareshwar Dam are sitting within the dam’s catchment area claiming that they are willing to drown to death than been denied their rightful claim for adequate rehabilitation for the lands they have lost. In the meanwhile, water level is increased gradually in the dam, that soon the water would submerge the protesters. The protest has entered the 10th day today.

The Narmada Valley Project, of which the Omkareshwar Dam is part of, is one of the most controversial development projects in the world, plagued with proven claims of adverse environmental impacts. [Source]

Super-Trawler threatened for its plans to pillage the ocean

The Tasmanian businessman behind the super trawler Margiris is playing down threats from environmental groups to stop his ship. Greenpeace failed to block the ship from docking in the South Australian fishing town of Port Lincoln last week. And over the weekend the Sea Shepherd society also said it would do anything it possibly could to stop the boat. [Hear an interview here]

“We want the public to know that several conservation groups are not planning to go down easily on the Interior Department’s plan to destroy up to 20 million acres of southwest deserts, not even including the wind projects,” Terry Weiner of the Desert Protective Council in San Diego told ECM. DPC is a co-founder of Solar Done Right, one of the environmental groups that filed a protest.

Concentrated solar destroys desert habitat

As of July 2012, eleven solar projects on over 36,000 acres had been approved on public lands. The projects range from 618 to 7,025 acres, with the average power plant exceeding 3,300 acres. As of July, pending proposals numbered 76, and would cover a total of 695,387 acres of public land. The scale, intensity, and pace of development on public lands are unprecedented.

Massive solar power plants will have irreversible, essentially permanent, impacts. The BLM admits that ecological recovery after public lands solar plants are decommissioned, if even possible, could take 3,000 years. [Source]

Climate activists drop banner on Olympics logo in London

Three people arrested after an environmental group dropped a banner on Tower Bridge have been released on bail. The bridge in south-east London was closed for over an hour on Saturday after the stunt by climate group Climate Siren.

City of London Police said a man and a woman were arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage and a public nuisance. A man was arrested for assisting them.

The sign read Climate change, our next challenge and was placed over the famous bridge, which is currently adorned with the Paralympics Agitos logo. [Source]

Oglala Lakota Nation Women’s March and Day of Peace Lockdown

DGR Lockdown at the action

Women of the Oglala Lakota nation along with activists from Deep Green Resistance, AIM Grassroots, Native Youth Movement, Un-Occupy Albuquerque, Occupy Lincoln, and Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center took part in a march from Billy Mills Hall in Pine Ridge into White Clay to protest against the predatory liquor industry present there.

“For over 100 years the women of the Oglala Lakota nation have been dealing with an attack on the mind body and spirit of their relatives,” says Olowan Martinez who is a main organizer of the event and resident of Pine Ridge. “The Oglala have been silenced through chemical warfare waged by the corporations who are out to exploit and make a profit off of the suffering and misery of our people. The time has come to end this suffering by any means necessary.”

After the march and speeches members of Deep Green Resistance locked down and blockaded the road into White Clay.

Less than a half hour after the lockdown began a police officer rolled down their window and indiscriminately pepper sprayed into a crowd. Up to 12 people were pepper sprayed including the 10 year old son of a Lakota woman who helped organize the march. Also, an elder Lakota woman, Helen Red Feather, reported having her leg hit by a police car in motion. Medics with the protest treated pepper spray injuries.Read full press release

Anti-capitalist student protests continue burning shit in Chile

Last week in Santiago between police and tens of thousand of demonstrators demanding education reform. The rally was one of the largest in recent weeks, with between 50,000 and 130,000 protestors, according to police and protest organizers.

While some danced to the rhythm of drums, thousands of others, masked and wearing hoods, followed the procession and attacked police with sticks and stones. The police responded, as they have in the past, with tear gas and water cannons.

Fire breathing Chileans in the streets!

The students were backed by members of the Unified Workers Federation, the country’s foremost union, which called on members to join the march. Public education in Chile suffered from sharp cuts in funding during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, leaving a system that favors expensive private schools that are out of the reach of the poor.

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Vermin Supreme 2012 at the DNC.. Vote in an honest scumbag for a change. And don’t forget to brush your dam teeth!

Friday’sCritical Mass, a monthly mass bike ride through central London, was the focus of a huge police operation on Stratford High Street, with 182 arrests made.

The Met [police] attempted to limit the ride under provisions in section 12 of thePublic Order Act 1986, which states that the police can impose conditions on a public procession if they hold the reasonable belief that “it may result in serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community.” As Critical Mass, which uses the roads entirely legally, has been taking place monthly since 1994 without ever previously incurring the imposition of a section 12 order its potential to “result in serious public disorder” seems doubtful. It is open to all and welcomes cyclists, skateboarders, wheelchair users and other self-propelled people.

In a statement, the Met said that the order was put in place “to prevent serious disruption to the community and the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.”

On May 3rd, hundreds of protesters from climate and anti-cuts groups across the country teamed up to block the UK Energy Summit in the City of London. [1] They descended on the conference venue at 11.45 am, saying they intended to remain there to disrupt the UK Energy Summit. At least 300 protesters targeted all of the main entrances to the Summit venue, attempting to push past police to enter the conference.The UK Energy Summit [2] involves CEOs of the Big Six energy companies, who have recently come under widespread criticism for drawing in record profits whilst one quarter of UK households have been pushed into fuel poverty. [3] The event took place at The Grange Hotel, near St Paul’s Cathedral.

The protest congregated at four locations before descending on the summit: Tate Modern, St Paul’s, City Thameslink and Canon St. En route to the summit venue, protesters used “any means necessary” to get their message out by using stickers, chalk and noise to draw attention to the protest. Once they arrived at The Grange Hotel, they attempted to enter the hotel building with banners and giant model dinosaurs as a reference to the outdated “dinosaur technology” of fossil fuels. Reports have been of police violence when at least two people were arrested, with one protester possibly knocked unconscious by police.

To mark the anniversary, thousands gathered in Bhopal to call on the Indian government to boycott the 2012 Olympic Games in London because Dow Chemical is an official sponsor. Activists also blocked railway tracks to protest the ongoing denial of compensation payments to victims despite a $148 million plan unveiled earlier this year.

The “Rail Roko” [railway blockade] was organized at four points from Nishatpura to Barkhedi railway crossing in the city which was otherwise peaceful as the survivors squatted and laid on the tracks. However, at Barkhedi crossing near Aishbagh Stadium police first snatched the mike of the public address system fitted in an auto-rickshaw, which was being used by survivors to make announcements about maintaining peace. Thereafter, the policemen started to drag away elderly female survivors in order to clear the railroad and cane-charged them mercilessly.

Seeing this the youth among the protestors became wild and took to stone pelting immediately and indulged in arson. While the road metal (80 mm stones) lying in abundance on the rail tracks came handy for the youth to shower the police with it which had to make a tactical retreat. Bhopal District Collector Nikunj Shrivastava and City Superintendent of Police (CSP) HN Guru were injured in the heavy stone pelting. In the melee that ensued four police vehicles and a number of two wheelers were torched by the protestors to express their ire. A police jeep and an OB van of ETV news channel were also damaged in the stone pelting.

The “Rail Roko” stir was called off after the representatives of the five NGOs met the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister who reportedly conceded to all their demands including submission of correct figures of deaths and injuries in the gas disaster in the curative petition in the Supreme Court.

The CM said he would write to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, supporting the survivors’ demands.

Balkrishna Namdeo of Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pension Bhogi Sangharsh Morcha said: “We have given January 3, 2012 deadline to the chief minister to give correct figures before the Supreme Court or else survivors would again stop trains”.

For a decade, local residents of Rossport and international solidarity activists have been fighting and organizing against a disastrous proposal by Shell, the Corrib gas project (Irish: Ghás Aiceanta na Coiribe), which entails the extraction of a natural gas deposit off the northwest coast of Ireland. The project includes a development of the Corrib gas field, and constructions of the natural gas pipeline through Rossport and a nearby gas processing plant.

To mark a decade of opposition, The Party against The Pipe, is being held over the June 4-6th weekend. The festival will take place at Aughoose and will feature an eclectic mix of music, circus performance, children’s activities and free camping.

At an international solidarity event in County Mayo yesterday, May 24, 2011, entitled From Bhopal to Rossport, local Mary Corduff said residents were made criminals in their own land. “The struggle in Rossport goes on, with the section of the project left to be completed the hardest for Shell, but also the hardest for us. The struggle has had some successes however, as originally Shell had planned to have gas in the pipeline by 2003.”

Gary Whitedear of the Choctaw Nation spoke, reminding the community event of the solidarity between the Choctaw and the people of Ireland, which began in 1847 when the Choctaw Nation sent $170 in famine relief to Ireland, and was renewed in 2008 when they sent a small monetary donation to the struggle against Shell. The event also heard from activists in Guatemala and from the campaign for justice in Bhopal, India.

The actions against Shell in Rossport show no sign of letting up. On May 17, protesters who have been involved in a series of actions in northwest Mayo, blocked access to the Corrib Natural Gas building in Belmullet to mark the Royal Dutch Shell Annual General meeting in The Hague and London. They also damaged Shell fencing at the Aughoose site on the previous Saturday, where preparatory work has started for the sub-sea tunnel under the Sruwaddacon estuary.

A new film, The Pipe, has been touring the world, and has thus far won the Irish Film and Television Awards, the Celtic Media Festival, CIRCOM (association of European Regional Broadcasters, Galway International Film Fleadh (best doc), Foyle film Festival (best doc), Boston Irish Film Festival (best doc), Wurzburg Film Festival & Arizona Film Festival (best doc), International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (honorable mention)

Both films tell the story of the rural community in County Mayo, who have been battling the oil giant Shell over their plans to put a raw gas pipeline through the community and complete construction of a gas processing terminal that is a threat to their delicate environment.